PROJECT OVERVIEW
CLIENT
Code Championship is an online platform for coding events for children. Our team evaluated their existing website through heuristic analysis and usability testing and provided thoughtful recommendations that improve their site's overall message.
MY ROLE
I conducted a usability review to gain an understanding of the pain points and opportunities. I worked with my team to write a script for usability testing sessions. I individually tested two participants on my own, and then with my group moderated a testing session. I inputted the raw data from my testing sessions into the group repository and then as a group we synthesized to create our individual findings and recommendations report.
METHODS
Heuristic evaluation
Lab usability testing
Remote usability testing
Research synthesis
Affinity diagramming
Low fidelity wireframing
TOOLS
Sketch, Miro, Google Docs, Zoom, Quicktime, Otter.ai.
THE CHALLENGE
Code Championship is an organization that offers competitive coding tournaments for grades 3rd to 9th. Their events turn coding into a sport-like experience, using friendly competition as a launch pad for learning.
Goal: To begin the evaluation of the Code Championship, I conducted a usability review to gain a deeper understanding of the organization, users, and website.
Insights: I reviewed the goals of the website, organization, and user groups. I completed a heuristic evaluation based on the key tasks of the website. Based on my findings, I created a list of hypotheses of what areas of opportunity might exist for increasing the usability of the website. I then tied some areas to heuristics.
Usability Testing Methodology.
Script: With the use of a script the team wrote together, we individually tested tow to three users and asked each participant to complete tasks on the website directly related to evaluating the testing goals.
Participants: 14 users were tested. 9 were tested remotely by individual team members and 5 in-lab by the team.
Remote Testing: All four individual group members evaluated 2-3 users in 45min remote testing sessions using Zoom on a computer and recording software such as QuickTime and Otter.ai.
In-Lab Testing: Four 25min sessions were conducted with all team members present over Zoom on a computer and Otter.ai to record the conversations, as well as paper and pen note taking.
Goals: Gain insight into the navigability and recognition of the website. Identify pain points and opportunities for improving the usability of searching and understanding coding tournaments.
Insights: My group chose to use Miro to synthesize and organize our raw data into post it note affinity diagram.
Findings and Recommendation.
I synthesized the raw data compiled by myself and my team to determine key insights. I compiled these in a findings and recommendations for the client.
Conclusion.
The purpose of this report is to evaluate the pain points and opportunities of Code Championship’s website, and offer recommendations based on research gathered during user testing sessions.
Key Recommendation:
Display clearer navigation on the homepage as many participants were confused on where to exactly find certain tasks and what they meant.
Adding an easy to submit form for the mailing list at the bottom of the page as many participants were confused on the join the mailing list page. A familiar form would help.
Prioritize visual hierarchy within the content of the homepage to create simplicity and easier navigability.